


Through the Looking Glass

by Jael



Series: Rebuilding Bridges [6]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Double Date, F/M, Haunted Houses, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform, This is a tough one to tag OK?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 04:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/pseuds/Jael
Summary: Of all the things Leonard Snart has done since being pulled from the timestream three years after the Oculus explosion, meeting his Earth-X double is probably the weirdest.Of course, in the life of a Legend, things can always get weirder.





	Through the Looking Glass

**Author's Note:**

> This one started as something completely different: a Halloween story, a light-hearted Legends team-building visit to a haunted house, with guest visits by Leo Snart, Ray Terrill and others. And then Leo and Leonard, who had...issues...to work out, completely took it over and turned it into something I didn't plan. (Snarts are strong minded, OK?) I ran with it.  
> Many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta!

“I can’t believe this is what you people do for fun.”

Sara, grinning, glances over at Leo, who’s standing with Ray Terrill a few feet away, staring at their destination. He catches her gaze, lifting an eyebrow at her, then goes back to his perusal of the site.

“Well, only this time of year,” his husband tells him, amusement in his own eyes. “And it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.” He laughs at Leo’s expression. “You can pass if you want. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen one; I’m going to go in.”

“Hmm.” The man from Earth-X shakes his head. “Well.”

“You wanted to visit for the Halloween season,” Terrill reminds him.

“I was expecting more along the lines of candy and kids in costumes, not...” Leo waves a hand. “...this.”

Leonard, who’s standing next to Sara and eyeing his doppelganger with a wary expression, transfers his own gaze back to their surroundings. They’re standing outside in the warm fall night, right inside a main gate that led into what he vaguely remembers used to be a business plaza with multiple shops big and small. It’s something different, now.

“Frightmares!” the massive sign over one of the bigger former department stores screams in bright green and lurid purple letters. “One of the top 10 haunts in North America! Five houses!”

Frankly, he’s a little dubious too. But Sara had wanted to come here during their stop in Central City, and he’d wanted to spend some time off the ship with her...and here he was.

Leo sighs, and Leonard glances back at him. He can’t help the uneasiness the other man invokes in him. The whole thing is just...weird.

It hadn’t been planned, this meeting. With the Legends taking a break due to a lapse in the supernatural activity Constantine could locate (the warlock isn’t sure why, but he’s currently trying to find out), they’d headed back to 2019 to try to give Lisa and others the news of Leonard’s return.

While his sister hadn’t been in town (Ramon had promised to try to find out where she is), the opportunity to let himself into STAR Labs and stun Barry Allen with the back-from-the-not-so-dead routine had been too much to pass up. However, the reaction hadn’t quite been what he’d expected.

Barry had glanced up from where he’d been looking at something with Ramon and Snow, focusing on Leonard immediately. But he hadn’t reacted with stunned disbelief or shocked surprise, but rather with a thoroughly non-surprised grin.

“Hey!” he’d called. “That didn’t take long.” Then he’d frowned a little, looking at Sara. “Where’d Ray go? And Sara? What are you doing here? Not that you’re not welcome, of course.”

Leonard had halted, staring at him, nonplussed. Sara had put two and two together pretty quickly and laughed, stepping up and putting a hand on Leonard’s arm.

“Barry,” she said gently. “This isn’t Leo.”

Then the reaction was all he could have hoped—well, maybe not _hoped_ , but Leonard’s with Sara, and Barry’s a married man now anyway. The younger man had stared, then, realization crossing his face. He looked at Sara again, who nodded, then back at Leonard, who’d lifted an eyebrow and given him his best “surprise!” smirk.

Barry’s jaw dropped. “Snart?”

Ramon squeaked. That was really the best word for it.

“The reports of my death...etcetera, etcetera,” Leonard had drawled, folding his arms. “Hear I missed a lot. Mazel tov.”

“Thanks,” Barry had said automatically. But then he’d frowned again, focusing behind them. “Uh. Sara? Did you tell him about...”

“Well, well, well. This is...interesting.”

Leonard had whirled at the eerily familiar voice, coming face to face with...his own face. Mostly.

And that had been how he met Leo Snart of Earth-X, visiting Earth-1 for a few days to meet his husband’s parents and take some supplies back to his own Earth.

It’s still weird. It will probably never stop being weird.

Although they’re heading to Star City soon to see Sara’s father and friends (something Leonard is fervently trying not to think about too much), they’d planned to stay a day or two in Central first. Leonard would be just as content to give that up now, but Sara is holding him to it. And when she’d asked Barry if the Frightmares haunt was going on, Terrill had perked up and asked if he—and Leo—could come along.

He hadn’t asked Leonard. And Sara had happily agreed.

And here he was.

Leonard stifles a sigh of his own. He thinks Ray Terrill hears him, though, because the man glances over, giving him a half-smile.

He likes Terrill, actually. (And it’s always going to be “Terrill” to him—he can’t bring himself to call the man “Ray.”)  It’s not that the man’s attractive—although he is; apparently that’s one thing in which he and his doppelganger have similar tastes—but he seems to get how unsettling this is for Leonard. More so than Leo does, actually. His double just keeps studying him with the air of someone who just can’t figure out how things could have gone so wrong on this Earth.

It’s unnerving. And irritating. Really irritating. Especially given how Leonard knows a few things happened while he was...gone.

“Well,” Terrill says then, turning back to Sara. “I want to go check out the ticket options. And have a look at the concessions. Fair food is something you just don’t get on Earth-X.”

Sara makes a thoughtful noise and nods. “I wonder if they have the really good soft pretzels,” she muses. “Mmm…with plastic cheese. Gideon refuses to make that for me.”

“Let’s go find out. I’d give a lot for…”

Leonard thinks about following them, but they’re already halfway across the lot, toward the cluster of concessions in the middle of the haunts. And he figures Leo might follow them himself. He’s native to the other Earth, after all, and this is a new place with many new things.

He doesn’t.

The two Snarts regard each other. And neither looks particularly happy.

* * *

As they walk away, Ray Terrill looks back at the two men, his husband and his husband’s double from this world. It’s eerie, really, how they mirror each other, in ways they probably don’t even fully recognize. And how that lets him read the man he doesn’t even know.

Leonard Snart is uneasy and irritated, but he’s also unhappy. Disturbed. Not with the woman he’d come here with, not at all—if Ray’s any judge, Leonard’s pretty much besotted with Sara, as much as he’ll let himself show it to a relative stranger. But he’s very unsettled by Leo’s presence—maybe even his existence. Not surprising, really. He probably feels like the other man is both a threat of sorts and an example of what he could have been, had his path been somewhat different.

But given that Ray’s rather besotted with Leo himself…well.  He may not be the best judge.

Still, it’s hard to see that amount of…pain, yes, he’ll call it that…on a face he loves so much. And as much as he loves Leo, he knows his husband may sometimes—well, take his tendency toward playing counselor a bit too far.

“You really think this is a good idea?” he asks Sara quietly as they walk.

The captain of the Waverider smiles a little. “If we’re going to continue to work together from time to time—both you and Leo and the Legends—Len’s going to have to work out his feelings about this. And better now than in a battle scenario.” She glances at him. “And Leo’s...”

Terrill smiles too. “All about the feelings. I know.” He sighs. “But, despite how casual he is about all this, I know Leo. _And_ his feelings. This is making him more unsettled than he’s letting on, too.”

Sara makes a thoughtful noise. “Well, then,” she says after a moment, as they walk toward one of the haunts. “It’s a good thing we’re giving them a chance to talk it out.”

* * *

Leo is wearing short sleeves on the warm fall day, apparently unfazed by the scars tracing his forearms. Leonard can’t help glancing at them, then hurriedly looking away. He’s wearing his usual layers—four of them, all told—and it’s disconcerting how the other man is, in a way, baring his own body for him. It makes him uncomfortable in a way he’s not quite up to articulating.

A few of the scars match the ones he has. Most don’t. The man from Earth-X has fought battles Leonard didn’t had to, after all. That knowledge makes him a little uncomfortable too. If anything, it seems like Leo should be more guarded and less open than his counterpart. Instead…well, that’s just not the case.

Of course, Leonard’s fought battles Leo didn’t have to, too.

Leo also doesn’t seem bothered by the notion of simply studying his other self openly. They’ve traded histories just enough that Leonard knows that Leo has had quite a different life from his. He’d fled Lewis with his mother when he was quite young and grown up with his mother in the Resistance. She’d died during a Nazi attack on a base where she has serving as a nurse, but only a handful of years ago.

He has no younger sister.

And no matter how much Leonard wants to avoid talking to him any more than necessary, Leo apparently has no qualms about that, either.

“And so how are things going?” the other man says, leaning against a fence and folding his arms. Then he clarifies with a tilt of his head, as if aware that Leonard will dodge if given the merest opportunity. “With Sara.”

Leonard eyes him. “Fine,” he says shortly, folding his own arms.

And it _is_ fine. It’s great, really. But that doesn’t mean he wants to talk about it. Not even—or especially—with this man wearing his own face. It’d been bad enough that the man from Earth-X had been there, listening with great interest, when Team Flash had made the connection than Leonard and Sara weren’t just together—they were _together_ together, as Ramon put it.

All Leo had done was lift an eyebrow. But there’d been, to Leonard’s eye, an undue amount of skepticism in his expression.

“Fine?” Leo echoes now. “Really? Because as I understand it, from your Mick and others, you weren’t…you’re not too much connected to your feelings. And trust me, to make a relationship work, you need to…”

Oh, now, this is just too much. Leonard wants to snap, but instead he just rolls his eyes, turning away.

“No one asked you,” he mutters, looking around to see if he can spy Sara. But it’s darker, and there are increasingly more people around. He can’t see her or Terrill at all. Where did they say they were going?

Leo huffs a little.  “I want to help,” he says, a touch of asperity in his voice. “Not only do I like and respect Sara and Mick and the other Legends, you…”

“You don’t know me.” Now Leonard does snap. He glares at the other man. “You have no idea about my…feelings.” He spits the word out despite himself. “For Sara, or otherwise.”

Leo glares back. Leonard almost feels pleased about that. It’s the most negative expression he’s seen on the Earth-X man since they’d met. He folds his arms and delivers his most insouciant smirk…but it doesn’t precisely get the response he wants.

“Well,” Leo drawls, and the tone’s so familiar it’s eerie, “I’m sorry. For Sara. She deserves better. Someone who’s not made of ice, or pretends he is.” He shrugs as Leonard’s eyes narrow. “And given that no one on your ship seemed to have a clear idea of any of your feelings before you ‘died’…” He actually does air quotes and somehow that’s even more annoying. “…I can’t really believe that things will have changed quite so easily.”

“Ex _cuse_ me?” He’d known Leo had spent time on the ship (the puppet—and what had become of it—still were the subject of uneasy joking there) to “help” the team, but he’d had the impression that not much had come of that. Certainly not enough that the other man could make such a supposition about Leonard’s feelings or the lack thereof.

But it seems that he has. “Mick. Your Mick,” Leo continues. “He wouldn’t talk much about you. Someone who was _supposedly_ his best friend. And Sara. I could tell there was something…off…in her interactions with me, but she never once said anything about you. Seems like her feelings might be complicated, too, if there’d really been something between…between you two before. Although she certainly seems to have rushed into it now.”

_Rushed_ into it. After all they… “You don’t know that team as well as you think you do,” is all Leonard can manage before his phone chimes.

It’s Sara.

“Hey, where RU?” the text reads. “Thought U were behind us.”

Well, that explains why they’re not back. “Still outside,” he texts, ignoring Leo pointedly. “Where?”

After a moment, another chime. “Courtyard, mall plaza interior,” she sends back. “Gotta go thru a house to get here, tho.”

Of course. “Be there soon,” he replies, then tucks his phone away, scanning the area to get his bearings a little more. If he’s got to pick one of these things to go through, especially by himself, better to consider the matter rather than picking one at random. Let’s see… haunted swamp with swamp…things, a castle-looking one that seems to have classic movie monsters such as vampires and werewolves, the always-in-poor-taste abandoned asylum, zombie apocalypse, portal...

“Was that Sara?”

He’d ignore the other man, but he doesn’t want to deal with more badgering. “Yes. They’re in the courtyard in the building. Gotta go through one of the houses to get there.”

Leo sighs. “Of course. Well…”

But Leonard’s ignoring him again, striding toward the nearest ticket booth. He hears Leo sigh again, but he’s pretty sure the man is following him. More’s the pity.

He has to wait a few minutes, but eventually he steps up in front of a tired-looking attendant, who greets him absently before looking up—just as Leo joins him.

The attendant blinks. “Whoa,” he breathes, looking back and forth between the two men. “Are you, like, identical twins or something?”

Leo and Leonard glance at each other, then back at the clerk. “No,” Leo tells him with an absolutely deadpan expression. (It’s almost enough to make Leonard smile. Almost.)

“Oh. Um. What can I get for you tonight?”

Leonard opens his mouth to request one ticket, but Leo interrupts him. “Anything but the asylum one,” the man says flatly. “Just…no.”

The attendant blinks again. “Well, the tickets are good for any house,” he says finally. “Although you can buy a pass that will let you into all of them, either once or unlimited. Or…”

“One ticket,” Leonard interrupts. “For now. Thanks.”

The attendant takes that to mean one ticket each, so Leonard rolls his eyes and pays for both. He sort of wishes he’d had the foresight to lift someone’s wallet, just so that he could pay for Mr. Straight-Laced’s ticket with obviously stolen money. Mr. Not-Straight-But-Straight-Laced. Whatever.

From the look on Leo’s face, that’s occurred to him, but he takes the ticket anyway. “Which…”

The portal-into-another-world house (“Alien Hellscape!”) has the shortest line, so Leonard heads for that one. He slouches against the wall, ignoring the chattering group of teenage girls ahead of him, and tries not to sigh visibly as Leo joins him.

It only takes a moment or two before his Earth-X double speaks. “Did you pay for that ticket with stolen money?”

Leonard smirks at him. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Leo stares. Then he shakes his head disapprovingly. Leonard decides he’d really like to wipe that particularly self-righteous look off his face.

“I can’t believe you,” Leo says quietly. “You’re a thief. And...” He lowers his voice again. “...from what I’ve heard, a killer. You went right down Lewis’ path, despite everything.” He looks up and meets Leonard’s eyes. “Our mother would be devastated.”

As a low blow, it’s not nearly as effective as he seems to think it will be. Leonard hides the pang it does cause and shrugs, moving with the line.

“I sort of doubt that, because she high-tailed it out of town when my sister was still tiny, leaving both of us with Lewis,” he drawls. “She sorta lost any right to pass judgment, I’d say.”

Leo frowns at him. “What? I can’t believe that,” he says, tone thick with disgust. “How dare you...”

“I can’t care if you believe it or not.” At least they’re at the ticket-taker now. Leonard hands him the slip of paper with a nod, peers into the darkened space beyond the doorway, sighs, and starts in, into a first room set up as a damaged science laboratory.

Stuff like this isn’t all that big a deal to him. He’s observant enough to pinpoint all the “scares” coming, and he’s seen enough real-life shit that fake blood and made-up monsters don’t faze him. He’d double-checked the haunt rules, and the actors aren’t allowed to touch their “victims” here—not that he thinks Sara would inflict it on him if that was the case.

Fortunately, the gaggle of girls ahead of them, and the trying-to-act tough boys with them, are giving the actors enough of a noisy reaction that they’ll hopefully not try to get more out of the eerily similar men sauntering through the maze after them.

Especially since Leo feels like this is a valid time to continue their “conversation.”

“My mother was a strong woman,” he tells Leonard, falling into step next to him. “She left Lewis not long after he openly joined the Reich. I was 5. She took me with her. There was never any question to that.”

An...alien?...pokes its head through a crack in the plywood wall and hisses at them. Leonard lifts both eyebrows at it and keeps going. “You sure about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

The girls ahead of them shriek, and the boys swear, as a figure in a hazmat suit lunges out at them, shepherding them into another room. While the figure ignores them, Leo and Leonard hurry to catch up, slipping into the darkened space too just as a curtain falls closed behind them. Leonard glances about, then sighs as he catches sight of the light-ringed “portal” ahead of them. It doesn’t look dissimilar to a setup at STAR Labs.

Another figure, this one hooded instead of hazmat-suited—which doesn’t really seem to go with the theme, but whatever—has appeared now, doing some sort of theatrics over by the circle of lights, to the great glee of the younger people. No one’s listening to the older pair.

“Mmm. Well, it’s fabulous you got to grow up a momma’s boy, Nazis notwithstanding, but we both had to make our own hard choices.” Leonard gives him a flat look. “I chose to keep myself and my baby sister alive in the only way I could figure out at the time.”

Leo’s chin goes up. “You seriously couldn’t figure out a better way than becoming...

“...a helluva thief? Yup.” Leonard glances at him. "I did what I had to. Not ashamed of it. Not many other opportunities out there for someone who had a felony record as young as it’s possible to have one.”

Leo gazes back, as in the background, the hooded figure finishes its pageantry, the portal changes to glowing a harsh orange-red, and the light flares to “ooohs” and “aaahs.” “You could have gone to the authorities.”

“The cops? About Lewis? Many of them the same ones who called him ‘buddy’ and thought he got a raw deal when he got kicked off the force?” Leonard lifts an eyebrow at him. “Leaving Lisa behind with him? Because that would have worked out so well.”

Leo starts arguing again, but the group is being shepherded through the portal now, and Leonard turns way, tired of it. The hooded figure, which is really rather small, tries to bar their way, but Leonard just wants to get through this damned thing. He sidesteps and goes through...into pitch blackness.

The teens are giggling nervously. Leonard takes a few steps to give Leo clearance room, and frowns, glancing around. His eyes haven’t adjusted at all. His night sight’s usually pretty good, so...

And then there’s a flare of light, so bright that his vision goes pure white. Leonard throws an arm up reflexively even though it’s too late, and hears the teens start screaming and Leo curse behind him.

“You OK?” he calls back as his eyes start to recover. He may not like Leo, but he doesn’t want to have to tell Terrill that something’s happened to him.

“Yeah.” Leonard can feel the other man move to his shoulder. “What the hell...”

And that’s rather what it looks like, actually, as his pixelated vision started to resolve. Someone’s vision of hell. A blasted landscape of bare, jagged gray rock and sand, flames flickering here and there, molten rock oozing sullenly out of gaps in the ground. Nothing else, save for some jagged outcroppings of rock, as far as the eye can see. And the air smells faintly of brimstone.

Leonard can hear Leo’s intake of breath. “Is your Earth capable of this kind of special effects or...”

“We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.” Leonard hesitates only a moment before reaching into his jacket and pulling out his newest weapon, a prototype miniature cold gun he’d been inspired to create after working with Gideon to rebuild his larger gun. It’s not as powerful, but it can be hidden far more easily, and he’d tucked it away before this trip to Central City, just in case.

Leo looks at it, then at him, and it makes Leonard smirk a little to see the disapproval that he’d brought a weapon into a public place warring with what frankly seems to be a thread of envy. But then he shakes his head and lets it go, glancing around.

“The kids!” he says sharply then. “Where’d they go?”

Leonard whips around too. The pack of teens isn’t in view, a realization that makes his heart sink. But...

Holding up a hand, he listens. Aside from a faint noise of crackling flame and wind, it’s quiet here, and... “There.”

Sure enough, not far away, the stone gives way to sand and there are footprints, all close together, as if, perhaps, the group was being herded. The two men start in that direction, carefully, Leonard holding his gun out and ready, Leo turning frequently to watch their backs.

“What could do this?” he muses. “One of the mythic creatures the Legends have been hunting? A demon?”

Leonard makes a thoughtful noise, his irritation with his double more or less faded for now in the presence of all this other weirdness. “Could be. More likely, I think, a meta with powers something like Ramon’s. There was something weird with that portal, but I figured it was just...normal weird,” he mutters. “For a place like this.”

“Point.”

Leonard can hear the sobs and noises before they find the group, rounding a stone outcrop to find the eight teenagers huddled on the ground. One of the girls jumps to her feet, looking like she wants to fight, but she puts her hands down as she sees them, eyes going big and round.

“You were behind us,” she stammers. “Before. Weren’t you? Do you have any idea where we are?”

One of the boys cuts in then, voice anxious. “This isn’t just part of the haunt...right? This is...this is just too weird. And that guy...the one who sent us here...”

“The one in the black hood?” Leo asks, glancing at Leonard. “Was he here?”

Another girl nods, pulling her legs up against her chest where she sits on the ground, back against the rock.

“He said...he said to pool all our cash and our phones and any, any other valuables,” she says, voice shaking, “and when he comes back, if it’s enough, he’ll take us home.” She looks down at a fairly meager pile of smartphones, costume jewelry, wadded-up bills, and change. “We don’t have a lot. I’m scared...my mom...”

“Hey.” Leonard hates to appear soft in front of his counterpart, but...she reminds him of Lisa. He goes to a knee, watching her, gentling his voice. “We’ll get you home. OK? What’d he sound like? Older? Younger?”

She blinks thoughtfully. “Just...you know, actually, just like a kid. Our age or younger. But trying to sound older.” Then she looks back and forth between them. “Wow. Are you twins?”

Leonard ignores the question, but the rest is perceptive for someone who’s scared out of her mind, and the others murmur in agreement with the assessment. He gets back to his feet as Leo addresses the group.

“Stay here,” he instructs them. “Stay together. We’re going to find him, make sure he takes us all back no matter what.”

They clearly don’t want to be left behind, but neither do they want to see more of what this blasted landscape holds, so they let the two men turn away without much protest—although Leo turns back nearly immediately.

“Any of you see another bright flash of light?” he asks. “Like when he brought us here?”

The answer, as expected, is no. Leonard scans the area thoughtfully, walking away silently until they’re out of sight, then glances at Leo, who’s eyeing him with an odd expression.

“The person in the black hoodie--what I thought was just a bad costume,” he says in a low tone. “They tried to bar us. Didn’t want us here too.”

Leo hums thoughtfully but frowns. “We’re more likely to have valuables...”

“But we’re also more likely to be able to fight back.” Leonard nods to himself. “This is another kid, I’m guessing...a meta trying to take advantage of their powers to make some cash. They found this place while experimenting with those powers; Halloween’s a good time to use it. If it was something more sinister than that, they’d have...harmed...one of those kids to make their point—and, hell, they’d have gone for higher stakes. I’ll bet they even know some of those kids.”

He scans the area again, pinpointing a sheltered spot that looks like a likely spot for someone hiding and waiting in this hellhole, then takes a few steps.

Leo doesn’t follow him. Leonard glances back, sighs, and turns, readying his best glare again.

“Look, I know we can’t stand each other, but I could use the backup,” he says tersely, motioning toward the rock formation. “Just in case I’m wrong about the perp.”

Leo considers him, still with that odd expression.

“I can’t figure you out,” the other man admits. “You’re a crook and a liar who’s hurt a lot of people, but you were kind to those kids. And you didn’t even bother finishing a basic education, but you’re obviously highly intelligent.” He shakes his head. “You make no sense.”

Leonard stares at him.

Leo stares back.

Finally, Leonard huffs out a sigh. “Now, you want to do this?” he mutters, folding his arms. “Can’t it wait until we figure out how to get back?”

Leo takes one step forward...then smirks at him. God, that’s annoying. (“Pot, meet kettle,” Sara whispers in his ear.)

“Talk,” he drawls, “and I’ll walk.”

Leonard glares at him a moment longer. “Jackass,” he growls. “About what?”

Leo takes another step forward and stops, considering. “About...why you went along with Lewis. On a criminal path.”

Leonard snorts. “You realize I was 10 when he first took me on a job, right? I was supposed to say no?”

“You could...”

“Not without risking both myself and Lisa to Lewis’ temper.”

“Your mom...”

“Had already checked out, for all she didn’t leave for another month or two.”

“I can’t believe he’d...”

Leonard stops and spins to stare at his doppelganger. He abruptly strips back the sleeves on his left arm, holding up his scarred forearm to the horrified Leo. “This beauty was from Lewis. Broken beer bottle. I took the blow so he wouldn’t use it on Lisa. She was 5. I was 13.” He yanks the sleeves back down, roughly. “Nearly bled out. Didn’t. That’s one of the worst, but I got a lot more where that came from. Tell me again how I should have said no.”

It seems like it might have finally registered with Leo that he’s off base on some things here. He stares at Leonard’s now-covered arm a moment longer, then takes a deep breath and takes a few steps forward to join his double. Leonard scowls at him, but then turns and starts toward the likely hiding spot he’s identified.

After a minute or two, though, Leo speaks again, his voice low. “And there was no one to help you?”

For the first time, he doesn’t sound skeptical. He sounds almost...analytical. And Leonard can deal with that a lot better than he can cope with sympathy. He shrugs.

“Not that I could trust.” It's hard to judge distance in this place. The rocks are a lot farther than they look.

“How…” But Leo subsides.

And because of that, Leonard gives him a little more. “I was in juvie by the time I was 14,” he mutters, eyes on their path. “After that, any choices I did have got a lot smaller. Schools didn’t want me, between the juvie and the fact I was Lewis Snart’s son. And then I kept missing class to take care of Lisa, and they took that as further evidence that I was worthless. Lazy. Didn’t care.”

That gets a disgusted noise from Leo, but for once, it doesn’t seem to be aimed at Leonard himself. Leonard can see the other man watching him, but he doesn’t say anything, and Leonard decides to reward him by giving him a little more.

“So, yeah. I decided if I was going to be a crook, I’d be the best damned crook I could be,” he drawls. “And I was good at it. Far, far better than Lewis.” He knows a smirk is touching his lips, doesn’t care if Leo sees it. He’s not going to be ashamed at what he’d accomplished, what he’d risen from. “And believe it or not, I might not have been a ‘hero,’ but I had a code, and I kept my people to it, too.”

“What about Mick?”

Leonard glances at him. “What about Mick? I met this Earth’s in juvie, you know, when I was 14 and he was 16. He was in the same boat in some ways. Though he was even _less_ motivated to be on the side of the angels than I was.” He hesitates, then, knowing that Leo’s Mick had been quite firmly with those angels—and no matter how much he’s irritated by his double’s attitude, he finds himself loathe to dispel any of Leo’s fondness for either Mick.

_Without me to keep him in line, Mick can be a scary guy,_ his memory whispers.

He ignores it. People change.

Leo gives him an odd look, but Leonard continues. “So, I dunno,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe there was some choice, some way out, in there someplace, but I sure as hell didn’t see it at the time.” He looks at the Earth-X man. “I won’t say I didn’t make a lot of mistakes, did some things I regret. But you weren’t here, living it, so spare me the judgment.”

Leo frowns to himself, but by then, they’ve reached the rock formation. The two men share a glance, then Leonard takes a step to one side, tilting his head, and Leo nods, tilting his head toward the other.

_I’ll go this way and you go that way and distract him until I can get the cold gun on him_ , the first gesture says.

_Gotcha_ , is the wordless reply.

Maybe they do have something in common besides appearance, after all.

As it turns out, the meta is question has earbuds in, of all the damn-stupid things. He’s sitting on the rocks, nodding his head in time to some sort of music, and he nearly jumps out of his skin when Leo steps in front of him, waving in a friendly fashion. Before he can do anything more than jump and gape, though, Leonard steps out, aiming the cold gun at him and giving him a disapproving and mock-disappointed look.

“Hey, kid,” he drawls. “Think you forgot about something.”

The teenager blinks at them, and Leo, rolling his eyes, steps forward and grabs the cords of his earbuds, giving them a yank. They fall out, and Leonard repeats the words patiently.

“Time to put us all back where we came from,” he clarifies. “If you don’t want this to go very badly, anyway.”

“But how…”

Leo steps smoothly in to play good cop, then. “Well, now, my friend here doesn’t really want to hurt you, you know. But we do need to go home. Which this…” He waves a hand. “…is not.”

The kid, a pasty-pale redhead with a ton of freckles, stares at him before stammering out a response.

“It’s just...I need, money, man. And…” He suddenly seems to register just what, precisely, he’s looking at, and his eyes flicker back and forth between them. “Whoa. Are you guys twins?”

Leonard ignores that. Again. “You scared the crap out of those other kids,” he says, letting his voice grow harsher. “For what? A few bucks and couple secondhand smartphones?”

To his slight surprise, then, the meta rallies, his chin going up and his eyes growing a little harder.

“Those kids have made my life a living hell in high school,” he snaps back, before flagging a little. “Well, some of them have. Not all of them. But they were in a group and…” He shakes his head and looks around himself, then waves a hand.

“This place looks scary, but it’s really pretty harmless,” he says almost apologetically. “I found it when I was experimenting and as long as you keep your eyes open, you’re fine. And I’da put ‘em back no matter what. But I needed some money, for…”

His voice trails off. Leonard sighs. A glance at Leo tells him that the other man is, perhaps, starting to fall for this sob story. But he’s not so gullible. (He tells himself.)

“For what?” he asks, keeping his voice harsh. “Drugs?”

“No!” Now the kid looks really upset. “It’s just…my car won’t pass inspection. Not unless I get a few things fixed. And I need it to get to work. I help out my mom…my sister…”

Crap.

The two men exchange a glance again. And somehow, there’s another meeting of minds.

“Kid,” Leonard says, gently his voice now, and tucking the cold gun away. “You ever heard of a guy named Cisco Ramon…?”

* * *

They let the kid, whose name is Aaron, pull his hood back up before he takes the other kids back, right to the spot in the haunt that he’d taken them from, and right to the minute. They all swear they won’t talk about it, and while Leonard doesn’t really believe them, he’s also fairly sure no one will really believe them if they do.

Aaron, who’d enlisted the help of the haunt-employee friend who’d been in the hazmat suit earlier, ushers Leonard and Leo through one of the nearly “chicken doors” and out into the corridors beyond. One call to STAR Labs later, the Flash himself shows up, giving the two men a somewhat beleaguered glance before taking off with the repentant young meta, who, if he turns over a new leaf and gets some training with his powers, will now have the support of Team Flash behind him.

It’s sort of fun, Leonard decides, to make promises on Barry’s behalf. Especially knowing the younger man will feel honor-bound to fulfill them. It’s also kind of fun to see the realization on his former nemesis’ face that Leo and Leonard, working together, could be a force to be reckoned with.

And isn’t that a thought?

After that, they both use the corridors to head slowly toward the center of the complex, where Sara and Terrill are, presumably, still waiting for them with absolutely no idea what’s gone down. But before they can step out into the bustling courtyard, Leo slows to a stop, moving aside, and Leonard lifts an eyebrow at him, but does the same.

The man from Earth-X takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out before nodding and looking at his double from this Earth.

“I’m sorry,” he says simply. “You’re right. I didn’t realize how different things were here, for you, and how they affected you.” He spreads his hands out before him and sighs. “I’d never have thought that you might have had the harder road, considering where I’m from.”

Leonard tilts his head and considers, briefly, being a bit more of a jerk about it…and he finds, after all, that he doesn’t have it in him.

“And I’m not saying that I did,” he says instead. “They were just...different roads. Different challenges. And, well,” he drawls, showing his hands in his pockets, “I’ve never had to be a soldier, either. And at least no one’s ever tried to lock me up or kill me for…particular proclivities.”

He lifts an eyebrow. “And they would have, you know. Being with Sara doesn’t change that.”

Leo gives him a smirk in return. “Never said it would.” He folds his arms. “And I still think you’re going to have to…deal with some of your issues…if you want it to work out with Sara. Because…before you ‘died,’ if you had feelings for her, did she even know?”

“She knew. I sort of…” Leonard stops himself, a bit disbelieving that he’s fallen into the conversation. “I’m not talking about this.”

Leo lifts an eyebrow now. “Talk,” he drawls. “It will help.” He lifts a finger as Leonard glares at him. “And if you do, I won’t bring it up in front of Sara. Probably.”

Leonard continues his glare a moment longer, then sighs. “Fine,” he mutters, moving just out into the courtyard and leaning against the wall. “I made an overture of sorts to Sara. Back…before. But it wasn’t…wasn’t a great time for it, and she just…she challenged me. To steal a kiss.”

Leo makes a sympathetic noise, but Leonard ignores him. “And then I ‘died’…” He makes his own air quotes as sarcastic as possible. “….before…well. She kissed me at the Oculus before it blew up. OK?” Now he glances at the other man, who suddenly looks both a bit stunned and bit…ugh. Pitying. “And that was it. Until a few months ago.”

Leo stares at him. “But why wouldn’t she tell me? About that? Back when I was trying to help the team grieve. When I’m…”

“Maybe because it’s none of your business?” Leonard folds his arms, eyeing him. “And because it might be pretty damned awkward, considering that you’re not only not interested, you’re absolutely stinkin’ in love with your guy?”

Leo shuts his mouth. “Ah,” he says after a moment. “You have a point.”

“Uh huh.” Leonard shakes his head. “C’mon. Been a long night already. I wanna see Sara, and I’m sure you wanna see Terrill.”

He takes a step forward, but Leo doesn’t follow. When Leonard looks back, though, Leo’s watching him. And he no longer looks judgmental. In fact, he’s almost smiling.

“We good?” he murmurs.

Leonard sighs. But he offers the edge of a smile back. “Long as you don’t try to hug me.”

A moment later, though, he sighs. “No. The puppy eyes won’t work.”

His double doesn’t say anything. But it’s just…disturbing, Leonard thinks. “Ugh. My face should never have that expression.”

Another pause. “All right. Fine. One hug,” he allows.

A few minutes later: “Let go, Leo.”

Another few minutes: “Sara? Help?”


End file.
